THE authentic sound of rockabilly is heading to Chorley Little Theatre next Saturday night with a homecoming gig by rising rock and roll stars Doug Perkins and the Spectaculars.

For the band, formed just two years ago, it is their biggest show yet and they hope that a sell-out will help propel them on to the next level of success.

“This will be our first theatre show,” said double bassist DB.

“The rest of the four-piece also have suitably rock and roll names –Mad Eye Perkins on vocals, Captain Chet ‘Spangle’ Banner on lead guitar and Slim on drums.

“For two of us it’s also in our home town, the guitarist from Coppull so that’s pretty close and we’ve adopted the singer as he’s from Southport.”

Behind all the banter, the quartet are really making waves with their genuine 50s look and sound.

“This is the music we love,” said DB, “and we are as true to it as we can be.”

At their live shows prepared to be surprised however.

For as well as covering standards by the likes of Elvis Presley and Johnny Cash, you are just as likely to hear Coldplay’s Yellow or an Arctic Monkeys cover – reworked in authentic rockabilly-style.

“It’s fun watching an audience realising what the song is,” said DB.

“It suddenly dawns on them that it is a song they know but that they have never heard it done like we do it.”

Clearly the band’s approach is paying off.

Last year they won the People’s Choice award at the annual Rock the House competition in which MPs nominate a rising band from their area and then the public are asked to vote on the internet.

“We had to go down to the Houses of Parliament to collect our award which was a great day out,” said DB. “Sadly we didn’t get the chance to play there.”

The band’s name has also led them into brushes with fame.

“All four of us wear glasses so we initially decided to call ourselves The Spectacles which we then changed to the Spectaculars which sounded a bit more rock and roll.

“But all the great groups in the 50s used to have the name of a band leader, like Bill Haley and the Comets.

“So to keep the glasses theme going we Googled the name of the chief executive of Specsavers opticians and it turned out to be Doug Perkins, which is a brilliant rock and roll name – and so that’s what we became.”

And the band’s name did not escape the attention of the Specsavers organisation.

“We have twice been invited to perform at corporate events they have held in Guernsey,” said DB.

“And we have had the real Doug Perkins on the dance floor.”

Rockabilly is one of the earliest styles of rock and roll, dating to the early 1950s. It blends country music with rock and roll.

  • Doug Perkins and the Spectaculars, Chorley Little Theatre, February 7. Tel 01257 264362.